Last Night of Ballyhoo

Last Night of Ballyhoo: Alfred Uhry's play, set in 1939 Atlanta, Georgia, examines the intra-ethnic prejudices of the affluent and highly assimilated Jewish Frietag family. Alfred Frietag, owner of the Dixie Bedding Company, lives with his sister Boo Levy, her daughter Lala, his sister-in-law Reba and her daughter Sunny. Sunny, a college junior, returns home for the holiday season and begins a relationship with her father's assistant Joe Farkas. As Sunny and her cousin Lala prepare for the exclusive Ballyhoo Cotillion, Hitler invades Poland. Childish Lala is far more concerned, however, with the premier of Gone With the Wind and finding a socially acceptable husband, potentially the arrogant Peachy Weil. Meanwhile, Joe, a Brooklyn born Eastern European Jew, forces Sunny to examine her own religious identity and ethics. A regional, education and professional theatre favorite, this play, by turns comic and unsettling, won both the Tony Award for Best Play and the Outer Critics Circle Award for Best Broadway Play.